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Publisher's Summary

Remembrance of Things Past is one of the monuments of 20th-century literature. Neville Jason’s widely praised abridged version has rightly become an audiobook landmark and now, upon numerous requests, he is recording the whole work unabridged which, when complete, will run for some 140 hours.

The Guermantes Way is the third of seven volumes. The narrator penetrates the inner sanctum of Paris high society and falls in love with the fascinating Duchesse de Guermantes. Proust describes vividly the struggles for political, social, and sexual supremacy played out beneath a veneer of elegant manners. He also finds himself pursued by the predatory Baron de Charlus.

Where does The Guermantes Way rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is the best of the series of seven books now known as Proust's "In Search of Lost Time." Unfortunately, only five of the seven volumes have beed recorded on NAXOS in an unabridged form. The series will be completed soon, I imagine, but the main frustration altogether resides in the sad fact that after all is completed, it will be of an outdated translation by Scott Moncrieff which, however excellent and widely celebrated, is inferior in some ways to the brand new translations published in England by PENGUIN BOOKS (General Editor Christopher Pendergast) and which, because of a US Random House copyright, are NOT FOR SALE [at least the last four volumes are not] in the United States. One has to explore various Internet bookstores to find them in this country. Furthermore, the audiobook is the UNCORRECTED C.K. Scott Moncrieff version which was famously brought up to date several years ago. Sigh! So, as good as this recording is, MR NEVILLE JASON is exhausting himself on outdated material -- 2,500,000 words of it before he is finished. One notes that the first audiobook in the series is called THE REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST for which the newer translation is given as IN SEARCH OF LOST TIME. Right away the reader sees the problem. However, this book -- THE GUERMANTES WAY -- is wonderful to listen to, and some generation (my grandmother's perhaps) was delighted with this translation which -- indeed -- was the only one in English and made the book famous in the English speaking world.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Guermantes Way?

The book is packed with memorable incidents. The "classy" party scenes, of course, are always to be looked forward to since Proust's commentary is hilariously satirical. Most people do not realize that Proust can be very, very funny -- and in a very cutting manner as well.

Have you listened to any of Neville Jason’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This man is SUPERB -- and he makes everything totally comprehensible. Long Proustian sentences I cannot figure out when reading them on paper come over with total clarity and sense.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Yes. I am 71 years old and am thrilled to be reading this masterpiece at long last. I am glad I skipped it in my 20s and 30s, however; it's far too cynical in its world views. Nothing is as it seems at first! I would have been disillusioned for my entire life! Proust turns the world upside down. And did I say there's an awful lot of sex in it? Nobody warned me about that.

Any additional comments?

I am delighted with the recording -- but sorry the newer translations will likely not be recorded in my lifetime. Proust is easier to listen to than to read, so the audiobook is a blessing. I did, by the way, order the new print translations from England and have had fun comparing them with this one.

In 'The Guermantes Way', Proust pushes several social forces together. He examines the cult of aristocracy, meditates on the role of the military in French society, examines French antisemitism through the Dreyfus affair, French art, and the banal conversations and selfish superficiality that permeate throughout the drawing rooms of the upperclass denizens of the Faubourg St. Germain.

Three times in the novel (the death of the Narrator's grandmother, the illness of of Amanien d"Osmond, and the announcement by Swann to Mme de Guermantes and the Duc that he is dying) Proust shows how the French aristocracy are concerned more with the shallow requirements of society (shoes, promptness, etc) than real human compassion for the dying.

Where does The Guermantes Way rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Among the very best

What other book might you compare The Guermantes Way to and why?

To be judged with the other sections of this book.

Have you listened to any of Neville Jason’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Only his volumes of Proust, all similar.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Happiness I am reading Proust in English.

Any additional comments?

You must begin with the first section of A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, Swann's Way, and decide to read all (6 or 7) sections, of which this is the third. You will not regret it. I have read French fluently for over 60 years, but failed to make headway with Proust. This translation and reading is a joy, and I am confidently on my way to listening to the whole book, which is unmistakably the great European novel of the 20th. century.

If you're looking this far into the gigantic Proust novel, I'll assume you need no recommendations regarding the "story", such as it is, but I will say that Guermantes Way is likely one of the most entertaining and funny of all the volumes. Proust's dead-on critique of high society is full of cynical humour as he comes to realize that the princes and duchesses he's worshipped from afar are either vain, stupid or badly wasting any wit or talent they possess.

Neville Jason has undertaken the huge task of rendering Remembrance of Things Past into audio-book form in English. He gives a fine read, giving characters equivalent British accents (the Duc de Guermantes is given a London aristocrats' accent, Fran??oise an Irish servant's tones, etc.) and pronounces all surviving French words correctly. The short pdf reader's guide that comes with the audiobook was actually written by Jason as well, and he does a good job of introducing the general reader to Proust.

This is volume 3 in a 7 volume series comprising the entire novel "In Search of Lost Time". This volume describes the narrator's young adulthood, his quest for sexual gratification, and his attempts to penetrate high society. His family rents an apartment in a building owned by the Guermantes (part of the highest strata of society), so he begins to stalk the Duchess, one of his childhood crushes from Combray, in the hope of impressing her. His efforts to be introduced to her come to naught until a chance friendship made in Balbec pays off. Many people don't realize how funny Proust is; some of his humor is tongue-in-cheek, so pay attention.

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Guermantes Way?

Rather than a moment, it's a section of the volume that will break your heart. About 50 pages in print, it describes Marcel's Grandmother's stroke (when they are in the park), her illness (including the state of medicine 100 years ago), and death. It combines tragedy with comedy and pathos. Unbelievably well written.

What about Neville Jason’s performance did you like?

Neville Jason's reading is a pleasure to listen to. He's a great voice actor, which makes it easier to identify the characters. it was quite an undertaking to read at 1.25 million words for all 7 volumes. (If all 7 volumes are not available when you read this, please put in a request for the missing volumes to Audible.) <br/>

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

The death of Marcel's Grandmother is the climax of the story of her stroke and illness. Marcel describes her body: "Life in withdrawing from her had taken with it the disillusionments of life. A smile seemed to be hovering on my grandmother’s lips. On that funeral couch, death, like a sculptor of the middle ages, had laid her in the form of a young maiden."

Any additional comments?

Today, Moncrieff's title "Remembrance of Things Past" has been updated to "In Search of Lost Time", a better translation of the original French. Moncrieff's translation of what is perhaps the greatest twentieth-century novel was a work of art in itself, but the translation included some errors and is out of date. I recommend obtaining William C. Carters translation of this volume in paperback from Yale to read or browse when it becomes available, but this is still a great recording. <br/>

I much prefer the John Rowe read versions, but he has not recorded all of the books. Neville Jason gives a very stilted and affected reading that is just annoying to listen to. He makes the narrator into a totally shallow and even silly character, which may not be entirely out of character but sure is hard to listen to. John Rowe creates a more engaging character and a much more pleasant listening experience for my ears.

Originally published in two parts, the third part of Proust's mammoth work is equally gigantic in its audiobook form (it's 28 hours long). Yet whereas I found the second part, "Within a Budding Grove", a step down in form, this is as brilliant as they come.

Two things stand out. Firstly, The first part of the volume includes not only remarkably penetrating wit, which Proust has in abundance, but also the most devastasting tableau of sickness, withering and death. His wrenching clear-sightedness and the ability to verbalize borders on medically objective descriptiveness at times, and passionately emotional at others.

Secondly, Monsieur de Charlus. He is a fantastically written character, a monomaniac of epic proportions with paroxysms of repressed aggression that transcend even Ahab's biblical ravings.

I think it was Nabokov who described Proust's chief d'oeuvre as "fantasy" (again, I think he preferred to the first half of the seven-part work), a definition befitting Proust's fantastical sense of reality, not only his own but that of his contemporaries and characters. What makes Proust so wonderful a teacher of human character is his ability to see beyond this reality and reach to the conditional, the possible, as well as the impossible; imagined conversations that we project onto characters, conversations that never took place that still define social relations. In short, all the stuff human culpability in falsely attributing characteristics to other people based on misinterpretation, it's all here.

Proust doesn't give any answers, that's for sure, but he's the most acutely clear-sighted observer of our condition in Western literature since Shakespeare has offered. Okay, fine praise and just the kind of name-dropping and hyperbole that says absolutely nothing other than emphasizing my enthusiasm for Proust. But I can't help it, the familiar memes that we recycle over and over again are the only things in my disposal that I can throw at you. I'll stop raving now and instead go listen the next volume, "Sodom and Gomorrah".

[I finished listening to this in early September but only had time to post this review now]

4 of 4 people found this review helpful

Jo

Cambridge, United Kingdom

4/14/13

Overall

"The perfect narrator for the perfect book"

Proust - coy, anxious, detached, waspish, flirtatious, prolix, detached, judgemental, effete, offhand, dreamy ... Audible have found the perfect narrator to capture that proustian voice and I'm looking forward to the full 150 hours of wandering sentences and tragic crushes. Having never managed to finish RTP on paper, having it as an audiobook fills up the next year very nicely for me.

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Clementi

3/26/15

Overall

Performance

Story

"What a journey!"

Would you listen to The Guermantes Way again? Why?

Yes, in fact I think much of Proust REQUIRES more than one listening to truly take in what he's saying.

What other book might you compare The Guermantes Way to, and why?

I don't honestly think one can compare Proust to anyone else! He is Proust. End of story!

Have you listened to any of Neville Jason’s other performances? How does this one compare?

I'm a huge fan of Neville Jason's narration and have been known to buy books on spec just because he's narrating them. I love his voicing of the characters, his measured pace and his pronunciations are wonderful.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

These pre-set questions are a little idiotic about some books! This is Proust, not chick lit!

Any additional comments?

I had never gotten around to reading Proust previously but it had been on my 'to do' list for many years. Somehow, he always seemed like too much of a chore before now. But, searching for something very long to listen to while in hospital, and having listened to pretty much every other over 25 hour novel on Audible, I decided to go for the Proust.<br/><br/>I began with The Guermantes Way as the subject matter appealed to me but it's very hard to stay on track with Proust I discovered as his obsession with involuntary memory is both beautifully lyrical and terribly distracting as I spent a great deal of time with my mind wandering down my own streams of consciousness and involuntary memory, entirely produced by Proust's inexorable desire to tap into this aspect of our psyche's.<br/><br/>The concepts he shares are the type of concepts which leave you wanting to smack your forehead and exclaim "Yes! I know EXACTLY what you mean there" and, "Wow, someone else thinks in the same way I do!"<br/><br/>I will definitely be purchasing all of the others in this great work now and would encourage anyone else, who has perhaps been put off in the past either by the length of the overall work, or maybe by the slightly ethereal nature of Proust's writing, to give it a go. Neville Jason adds massively to the overall enjoyment and understanding of Proust as he is an incredibly intelligent narrator in as much as he truly seems to understand both the characters and the part the author intends the characters to fill.<br/><br/>Highly recommend to anyone.<br/><br/>Go on, give it a go,you know you want to!

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Philip

4/25/14

Overall

Performance

Story

"No need to count sheep"

Would you try another book written by Marcel Proust or narrated by Neville Jason?

Neville Jason's reading is uniformly unctuous and monotonous. A wonderful remedy for insomnia.

What other book might you compare The Guermantes Way to, and why?

Swann's Way

Would you be willing to try another one of Neville Jason’s performances?

No

What character would you cut from The Guermantes Way?

None

Any additional comments?

None

0 of 5 people found this review helpful

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